Early voting at a fast clip after two days

Turnout improved slightly on the second day of early voting, moving from Monday’s 5,028 total to 5,310 on Tuesday. Another 1,864 voters returned mail ballots.

Voting is underway for Houston mayor between incumbent Annise Parker and top challenger Ben Hall, as well as for City Council races, school board and community college trustee races, state constitutional amendments and two high-profile bond votes, a renovation of the Astrodome and a long-discussed city-county inmate processing center.

Here are the totals from Tuesday. For a listing of all early voting locations countywide and their hours of operation, click here. For a sample ballot, visit the County Clerk’s website.

The top early-voting locations were the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center on West Gray (498), Trini Mendenhall Sosa Community Center in the Spring Branch area (316), Bayland Park Community Center in southwest Houston (301), and the Fiesta Mart at Kirby and the South Loop (299).

So far, 20,762 people have voted in person or by mail. That compares to 7,959 through two days in 2011, 10,437 through two days in 2009, and 5,375 through two days in 2007.

It should be noted that these tallies are countywide and do not separate out the city of Houston totals, though that’s where a lot of the voting activity (and higher-profile campaigns) occur in odd-numbered years. In 2009, of course, we had an open Houston mayor’s race. And this year, county voters have the Astrodome on the ballot. We’ll see how the numbers progress.